


Hope (it's what we work with)

by Enk



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enk/pseuds/Enk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd promised he'd fix her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope (it's what we work with)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).
  * Inspired by [and when the dust settles, we might find solace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/806601) by [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82). 



 

 

Normally, as Tony understands romantic convention has it, saving the life of a loved one comes with some kind of absolution and a strengthening of the relationship. Maybe it's because he's failed her once, failed her so completely, he can't let it go. He should have been there, should have caught her. Pepper doesn't fault him for it, not for not catching her. She's told him so, openly, calmly, holding his hand when he had cried into a glass of champagne one night over dinner when he- in an alcohol fuelled stupor- had tried to express to her what she meant to him. They'd agreed that his actions were probably better in the future than his words.

 

He feels ill standing there in the hospital's lab with a small blue vial in his hand. The anti-serum. Her cure.

 

He'd promised Pepper he would fix her. He would fix her and she would be okay again. They would return to their lives before the invasion, before the nightmares had settled in, before the night he had failed to save her not just from the fall but from the terrible fate that had awaited her. He should have seen it, should have known, should have anticipated, but he had been blind-sided. He would never forget the way he felt when he saw Pepper's face on that screen, her body fighting for her life. Nothing would compare to seeing her engulfed by fire, but he didn't allow himself to go to that place, he couldn't. Yet that same fire drove him on, drove him to sit down at his workbench.

 

That same fire had him burrow in research that wasn't his, had him re-learn biochemistry, chemical engineering and anything he could get his hands on that might help in his quest to cure Pepper. It was that fire which made him drink coffee by the pot, made him live off pizza pockets and granola bars, made him skip showers and definitely sleep. None of that mattered. He needed to fix Pepper. It was the only thing on his mind. The numbers and letters before him stretched over papers, notebooks, napkins, anything he could write on, with pencil rather than pen. Eraser shavings and lead covered his hands as he sucked back a can of cola to keep from falling asleep, but his eyes were heavy, so heavy, and more often than once did he fall asleep at his desk and woke with the imprints of his tools marking the side of his face.

 

Though all this, Pepper was understanding, always so understanding, even when he didn't come to dinner or to bed or to breakfast. Instead, she put a cup of coffee and pizza pocket- for breakfast, it was true love- on his desk before waking him with soft fingers through his hair and a gentle kiss to his temple. He would wake and she would kiss his lips, morning breath and all, with a smile and then disappear to let him go back to work. And work he did, until with trembling fingers, he held in his hands the formula he believed would work. What came next took nearly no time and after initial lab tests with skin cell colonies, he was confident that in fact he had found a cure for Extremis.

 

His hands are almost shaking too hard for him to continue when he tries to put the diluted serum into the centrifuge. Seventeen injections at 90 minute intervals for a single day. After he's sure the dosage is right, he allows the doctor to take over the injections. Tony watches. Pepper is pale, strapped into one of the devices they'd had her in when they'd infected her with Extremis. He feels sick but this is the only way... in case something goes wrong. His hands are clammy. The first three injections seem to have no affect. After injection four and five, she breaks out into a cold sweat. The readings begin to fluctuate. Her core temperature begins to drop ever so slightly. The trend continues until injection nine which briefly causes her heart to seize and Tony almost calls the whole thing off right there. She stabilizes before he can say the words, nods at him and mouths _I'm fine._ She's the strongest woman he has ever met. 

 

Her temperature rises with injections ten and eleven and he and her doctor spend the 90 minutes trying to figure out what sort of a feedback loop they were facing. He sits and holds her hand after twelve, because he needs a break and she looks utterly exhausted. She never asks to stop. When her temperature rises to pre-injection levels after injection fourteen, Tony has a small breakdown. Not in front of her, back behind the glass, in a corner of the observation room which she can't see, he slides to the floor, the scanning read outs crumpled in his fist. It is then that the doctor takes him off the project. Tells him he's been awake too long and prescribes a variety of junk from the vending machine and a nap on the chairs in the waiting area with a promise that he'll be woken once she was transferred. 

 

It's five o'clock in the morning, just over twenty-four hours since the injections had started, when a nurse comes to get Tony. He watches through the glass as they transfer Pepper from the contraption to a gurney. When she looks at him, he places his hand on the glass wishing he could be there with her, holding her, telling her she will be okay. However, they don't know that yet. In her hospital room, she is strapped to all kinds of scanners which will- he hopes, he prays- quantify any significant changes that are occurring in her system. Tony hunches over the numbers output for three days before she stabilizes. He checks and double checks and for a moment shouts with joy when the numbers clearly indicate her cured.  _Cured._ He finally has fixed her. Finally has fixed them. 

 

He prints everything out and puts it in a folder. He's nervous, and feeling slightly ill. Her skin is still pale, so pale, but there she is, alive and going to be okay. She is calm when she reads the file. He doubts she understands the numbers, but what she does know now is that she is okay, that she has beat Extremis. When their eyes meet, he expects to finally feel his absolution, his redemption, the end of the penance he's had to serve for failing her. When their eyes meet, he expects to feel love and warmth and happiness. None of it ever comes and he looks away before she can see the shame that fills his eyes, because he realizes, he's made this all about him... and never about her. 

 

“What? I told you I’d fix you.” He says and feels like he has fixed nothing at all.

 

It's not until Pepper takes his had in hers that he can bear to look her in the eyes. 

 

It's not until she smiles softly that he feels hope.

 

_Hope._

 

They would work with that.

 


End file.
